


A Small Kindness

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brock Likes to Mess with People's Heads, Dark!Steve, Implied Past Steve/Bucky, Interrogation, M/M, Natasha Kicks Ass, Snark, Spies, Steve/Brock UST, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier is taking out HYDRA bases, but when he sees Brock, he remembers something Brock once did for him.</p><p>Later, Natasha, Sharon, and Steve ask Brock about it -- with somewhat dark!Steve going farther than Brock has ever seen him go for answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt at avengerkink: _Bucky & Rumlow, revenge and mercy_
> 
>  
> 
> _After the events of CA:TWS, Bucky still doesn't remember much._  
>  _He's read up on who he used to be, though, and most of his actual memories revolve around the murders Hydra made him commit and the abuse he suffered at their hands._
> 
>  
> 
> _So, instead of going to find Steve right away or just give up, he makes it his new mission to hunt down the remains of Hydra._
> 
>  
> 
> _At some point, he runs into Rumlow (who by then has escaped from the hospital he was treated in) and has him held at gunpoint within seconds._
> 
>  
> 
> _Bucky then recognizes the other man as one of the few people who were ever good to him during his time with Hydra..._

Most of the HYDRA agents started running like cowards when they heard the Winter Soldier had found them. These agents had faced down SHIELD agents, military forces, and any number of threats, but they had heard the tales of all the other HYDRA facilities he had shown up at. Tales told by a very, very small number of gruesomely injured survivors.

Brock sighed. He guessed they had this coming, being stupid enough to piss off their best assassin. But he grabbed his guns and headed toward the screaming.

He got off a few shots but then had to take cover. When he realized there was a grenade headed toward him, he barely managed to jump out the window, catching the ledge a floor down and just managing to hang on. He swung through a window on a lower floor and headed back up, grabbing a weapon from one of the bodies on the floor as he passed.

He tried sneaking up on the Winter Soldier. This turned out to be a bad idea.

“So you want it slow and painful?” the Winter Soldier said, after easily disarming him and knocking him on the ground. 

“Order comes from pain,” Brock said with a grin, trying not to stare at the knife twirling in his hand.

The Winter Soldier narrowed his eyes. “You were on the support team.”

“Yeah.”

“So you know you can’t beat me.”

“Rather go down fighting than running. Besides, it doesn’t look like running’s doing the others much good.”

The Winter Soldier stared at him a long time, and Brock was sure he was contemplating how he was going to slice him up. But finally, the Soldier said, “Painkillers.”

So he did remember. Those couple of times that Brock had told the doctors to give the Soldier painkillers after surgery, going against orders. The Soldier never complained, but Brock had figured that even if his body was only a little bit human, he had to be hurting like hell. And nobody brought order to HYDRA’s enemies better than the Winter Soldier – easily the most badass fighter Brock had witnessed, like what Rogers could have been without the quaint conscience -- and the Soldier already paid with plenty of pain, so Brock hadn’t been too sure he needed extra.

“Guess I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Brock said with a smile. 

The Soldier actually smirked. “Better men than you have tried.” 

It’s the last thing Brock remembered before waking up in restraints in a SHIELD facility.

\--

Agent Thirteen was looking at down at Brock when he woke. “A dozen HYDRA facilities. Hundreds of HYDRA casualties. Survivors are barely being kept together by modern medicine. And you get knocked out and dropped off in one piece. Want to explain that?” she said.

Brock tested the restraints, then sighed and leaned back down on the bed. His head felt like hell but otherwise he felt okay. “I guess I finally found someone who appreciates me,” he said with a smirk.

“I really don’t think he appreciates you,” a voice from the corner said, low and hard. 

Cap.

Brock looked over. “Still whining about being in HYDRA? You sure you picked the right choice?” 

Rogers walked over and stood over him. “You knew Bucky was being held. Brainwashed. Tortured.” There was a disgust in his voice, and Brock realized that Steve was taking this Bucky thing a hell of a lot more personally than the elevator.

“Why did he show mercy? On you, of all people?” Steve gritted out, and Brock could tell this meant something to him.

Well, Brock’s mama always told him that he had no sense.

“Oh, didn’t you know? The Winter Soldier and I go way back. I see why you like him -- the things he can do to a man….” Brock smirked up at him. It wasn’t true, that he had ever done anything to the Soldier – even he didn’t get off on screwing with a mind-wiped animal, and he’d have been scared shitless to try it regardless.

Steve put a hand on Brock’s shoulder and squeezed. 

Okay, that was going to hurt a lot more tomorrow than the little concussion the Soldier gave him. 

“Okay, he wanted me to send you a message,” Brock said.

“What?”

“Stay away from him. He doesn’t want to be found by you.” Brock wasn’t sure why he made this story up. He knew that Steve and Bucky meeting again would probably end up with one of them dead, but he didn’t really give a damn. Pretty much.

“You’re lying,” Steve said.

Brock grinned. “You’ll never know. I know the guy better than you do. I was there for the Soldier when he needed me. Where were you?” 

A look flashed across Steve’s eyes, something dark and animal, and Brock realized in that moment that he might have been better off getting tortured to death by the soldier than be left with Cap. Because Brock had never seen Rogers like this, temper on a knife’s edge, barely controlling his lethal hands from wrapping around Brock’s neck.

Hell, if it weren’t directed at him, Brock would probably find this new Cap hot as hell.

Thirteen pulled Steve back, dragging him with all her force, insisting that they needed information about HYDRA more than they needed to knock Brock out.

\--

Natasha walked into the room a few minutes later. He knew her by reputation of course, and he wondered for a moment if he could beat her in a fight.

“I hear you like making Rogers crazy,” she said.

“Let’s just say the guy has certain buttons. And I happen to have very close experiences with that button.”

She crossed her arms. “Bet that was fun for you.”

“The job’s about strength, not fun,” he smirked.

“So you didn’t like that you had to work with the Winter Soldier.”

“I didn’t say that.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You cared about him.”

“He was a weapon, that’s it.”

“So… you were kind to him in some small way and so he spared you?”

“…No.”

She rolled her eyes. “What, did you put a bandaid on him or something?”

“No.”

“But you helped when he was injured?”

“Not – no.”

“So yes. So he spared you. And that message to Rogers was just something you made up.”

Brock paused. “I really fucking hate you.”

“Yeah, understandable. And FYI, I would wipe the floor with you in a fight.”

She left then and Brock frowned. He tried not to admire her. It was too damn bad she wasn’t HYDRA.

\--

“Sorry about your shoulder.” 

Brock hadn’t noticed Steve walking into his room.

“No prob, Cap. How about you untie me and then we fight it out like soldiers?”

“You’d just get knocked out again.”

“Better than what SHIELD’s got planned for me.”

“Appeals to my kinder side aren’t going to work.”

“Worth a shot,” Brock said with a smile.

Steve didn’t smile back. “I hear you helped Bucky.”

Brock paused. “It wasn’t much.”

“And it doesn’t make up for helping HYDRA use him to murder people.”

“Oh, yeah. Our ideological differences. Don’t you know it’s not polite to smalltalk about politics?”

“You still got a shoulder I haven’t touched.”

Brock looked up, startled. “I like this new you, Cap.” He wasn’t sure yet if that was true, but he knew it would bother Rogers.

“You’re going to tell me everything about Bucky. Including everything that he knows about HYDRA.”

“You think you can find him?” Brock said. “Because he’s the best. If he doesn’t want to be found…”

“He’s running after HYDRA, not away from me.”

“You don’t know that, Cap.”

“When I want the advice of a traitor and mass murderer, I’ll ask.”

Brock sighed. “He ain’t that guy, Cap. That dude in the video footage, hugging you and shit. Different guy, Cap.”

“You’ll be a different guy when I’m done with you. Unless you start talking.”

Brock frowned. “You think he’s still in there. Barnes. Because he showed me mercy.”

“Stop stalling. Tell me what you know. Or else Natasha finishes this interrogation. And she’s put in charge of your living conditions too.”

Brock sighed again. This was one battle he wasn’t winning. 

“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, Cap.”


End file.
